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Although Twitter played a big part in spreading news of Osama bin Laden’s death, Simon Dumenco writes, “a lot of the hyperventilating about Twitter ‘breaking’ the bin Laden story is just bullshit.” Dumenco says Keith Urbahn, credited with breaking the news, was just sharing unconfirmed information like everyone else. And where did he get that information? According to Urbahn, “My source was a connected network TV news producer. Stories about ‘the death of MSM’ because of my ‘first’ tweet are greatly exaggerated.” Urbahn’s original tweet seemed credible to me because he is a governmental source, and I presumed that his source also was inside the government. Now I wonder whether what we took for “confirmation” was just speculation.
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TV producer was source for tweet credited with breaking news of bin Laden death
Tags: Breaking news reporting, Citizen journalism, Credibility, MediaWire, Osama bin Laden death, Social media, Source relationships, Top Stories
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